


Spells

by DarkNymfa



Series: Ectoberweek 2018 [6]
Category: Danny Phantom, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover, Ectober Week 2018 (Danny Phantom), Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:06:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24237754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkNymfa/pseuds/DarkNymfa
Summary: Danny has always known that, unlike his friends, he has no magic. So when he tries again, years later, the results are rather... unexpected.
Series: Ectoberweek 2018 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1749376
Comments: 2
Kudos: 105





	Spells

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 7 of Ectoberweek 2018, "spells". Later rewritten [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20350126), but I split this one off of the original for archiving purposes anyway.
> 
> Hooray, we're ending on a cheery note! I've been playing around with an idea for a Harry Potter x Danny Phantom crossover fic, and this one-shot kinda serves as an introduction to the setting? It only includes the setting of HP, none of the characters, so it's not really a crossover yet.
> 
> I would also like to note that it's been years since I've seen the HP movies, and even longer since I last read the books (and not even the original books, but the translated Dutch versions), so I've patched the setting together from what I could find on the wiki. So yeah, any inconsistencies or errors can thus be explained, and if you find any, please point them out to me so I can correct them.

The existence of magic was nothing new to Danny Fenton. He had known for years that both of his best friends were capable of it. He had known for almost as long that he had no magical abilities whatsoever.

He still attended their magic training, of course. Sam’s grandmother had no problem encouraging him, allowing him to participate during activities that didn’t require actual magic, and he often watched for the rest as well. Knowing which spells Sam and Tucker were capable of could be rather handy when they tried to prank him using their magic.

They don’t usually do so, of course, knowing that it was a bit of a sore point. Between Sam, who _technically_ comes from a magical family (even if her grandmother is her closest relative with actual magic), and Tucker, who is No-Maj-Born, Danny was the only one in their close circle of outcasts that couldn’t do anything special. In fact, the only reason why he was an outcast like them wasn’t even his own fault, but it was because his parents were considered crazy by the rest of the town.

He had already been friends with Tucker before they ever met Sam, but she fit in with them like fate had designed the three of them for each other. They had all been outcasts, Danny for his parents, Tucker for his love of technology, and Sam by her own choice, and they bonded over their shared condition quite easily.

Sam was, of course, ecstatic to discover she had magic. She hadn’t been aware of its existence (her dad was a Squib and refused to associate with magic) but Ida was more than happy to start teaching her when she showed signs of accidental magic.

Tucker’s first accidental magic was a little more surprising, as it usually was for No-Maj-Born wizards, but Sam managed to explain it to him, and then Ida explained it to his parents, and he joined Sam in her training.

And if the two of them knew, then of course Danny couldn’t be left out, magic or not. _Technically_ , he’s not allowed to know, International Statute of Secrecy and all that. But everyone involved knows that those three kids wouldn’t keep these sort of secrets from each other.

That didn’t mean that anyone told the rest of the Fenton family, of course. The adult Fentons were already quite fixated on ghosts, and no one wanted to find out how they would react to magic. And Jazz was too much of a skeptic for anyone to cross.

Despite the fact that they knew about magic (and were getting quite good at it), and despite the fact that it didn’t even work, the Ghost Portal that Danny’s parents had attempted to build in the basement still managed to catch the interest of Sam and Tucker. He went along with their enthusiasm, wandered inside, and found out why it didn’t work.

And after that, he wasn’t the only ‘perfectly normal’ member of their group of outcasts anymore.

Of course, being half ‘magical creature’ wasn’t quite the same as being magic, but having his own special powers certainly had its upsides. Downsides too, can’t have everything in life (half-life?) but still. Gotta see things from the positive side, and all that.

So the three of them cleared some extra time in their schedules to fit in a new kind of training, just for Danny. And just like he attended the magical training of Sam and Tucker despite the fact that he couldn’t do much, they helped him with his own ghostly training.

And after ghosts start attacking Amity Park, well… Sam and Tucker certainly get a lot more opportunities to use their magic these days.

They started their own research, trying to find which spells would serve them best in the field and practicing them while Danny was training his own powers, although their training often overlapped. No one ever studied how these spells effect ghosts, after all, let alone half-ghosts.

And so, barely two months after the Accident, Danny found himself in quite a dilemma. His hold on his ghost powers was still shaky, and he had managed to lose his transformation ( _after_ the ghost was captured, thank goodness) and couldn’t dredge up enough power to use his powers in human form either.

Which would be fine, except that Sam and Tucker had gotten themselves trapped in a locked building by the ghost that had attacked them. And while they had recently learned a rather convenient unlocking charm, they had been disarmed during the fight, and their wands had been left outside the building.

Danny eyed the wands in his hands rather judgmentally, like it was the fault of the _wands_ that they weren’t with their owners. They appeared to be in a good condition, which was lucky since none of them wanted to explain to Ida how they had managed to damage them.

He dragged his eyes off of the wands, and instead glared at the lock. For the first time in years he found himself cursing the fact that he was the only one of their group without magic. He _knew_ the spell, had seen Sam and Tucker use it so often that he had memorized the incantation and the matching movements. It would have been so easy.

He wasn’t actually sure what inspired him to try. He just raised up the wand in his right hand ( _willow,_ he duly noted, _must have been Tucker’s_ ), made the swishing movement, and shouted “ _Alohomora_!” like sheer force of will would make it work.

And then the door swung open, revealing the surprised faces of Sam and Tucker, and Danny stiffened in shock, staring at the wand in his hand.

They stood there for what felt like an eternity, blinking dumbly. Tucker snapped out of it first, gingerly prying his wand out of Danny’s hand and inspecting it.

“Danny… How did you do that?”

His question jarred Sam and Danny back to life, and Danny quickly handed Sam her wand back as well.

“I… don’t know?”

Sam, who had pocketed her wand almost immediately, turned back to look at the door that Danny had somehow unlocked. She crouched next to it to inspect the lock closer.

“Well, you didn’t quite nail the Unlocking Charm, but you somehow managed to explode the lock without damaging the rest of the door, so I gotta applaud you on that.”

“Hooray for not doing more damage than necessary?” Danny said, smiling rather sheepishly.

“Why did you even have my wand raised if you were using some kind of ghost power anyway? Wait, how did you even blow up that lock? New ghost power?” Tucker questioned as he, too, put away his wand.

“Uh, I think it might be a new power? But I don’t know.” Danny shrugged. “I was kind of out of ghost juice and I was thinking about how convenient it would be if I had magic like you guys, so I just kind of… thought of how you did that Unlocking Charm and tried to mimic it?"

Sam frowned at him before turning back to the door. The lock was partially exploded and looked rather molten, but there were no clear signs of ectoplasmic energy being involved.

“Well, based on what I’m seeing here, your new ghost power is either a really sad attempt at an ecto-ray,” she studiously ignored Danny’s disgruntled yelp, “or you can make things explode with your mind.”

“Or,” Tucker declared, “your new ghost power is magic.”

“Tucker, ghosts _are_ magic. _All_ Danny’s powers are magic.” Sam rolled her eyes at him, but Tucker ignored it.

“No! Well, yes I guess, but that’s not what I mean.” The other two glanced and shrugged at each other, then nodded for him to continue.

“See, I was thinking, we don’t really know much about the relationship between ghosts and magic. Typical wizarding ghosts aren’t affected by magic, and most spells don’t seem to have much of an effect on the Ghost Zone ghosts either. Additionally, we know that wizarding ghosts can’t use magic, even though they were capable of it while they were alive.”

“Okay, thanks for the summary Tucker, but we already knew all of this.” Tucker tutted disapprovingly at Sam, and then continued like she hadn’t interrupted him at all.

“Now, we don’t know _anything_ about how magic works with half-ghosts. If ectoplasmic energy and magical energy are some sort of counterpoints, as suggested by the fact that they cancel each other out, then Danny should have _both_ , right?”

“I… I guess? That makes sense, sort of,” Danny muttered, frowning in thought.

“So then why didn’t he show any signs of it until now?”

“Uh, duh? It works like his ghost powers. Haven’t you noticed that he accesses those way more easily when he needs them? His magic must work the same, or at least for the initial use. Maybe he’ll start using accidental magic all over the place now that he knows he can do it, or has unlocked it or whatever.”

Danny glanced at the two of them and decided to jump in before they could start a real fight. “Well, if that’s really the case then I should start paying more attention during your training with Ida.”

“Yeah, and we’ll have to make room during your ghost training to practice magic as well.”

Sam turned to frown at Danny. “And if this really is some sort of ghost-powered magic, you’re probably going to need a wand too.”

Danny blanched. “Oh no, I hadn’t even thought of that.”

“Yeah, were are we even supposed to _get_ a wand for you? There are no wizarding cities nearby, and we can’t ask Ida either.”

“Yeah, and we don’t even know if this is actual magic. I guess you can use our wands to figure that out, though.”

Danny nodded. “Yeah, at least to decide if this was some kind of coincidence. But uh,” he glanced around them, “maybe we should get going?”

“Oh crud, magic training is gonna start soon. We gotta hurry!”

* * *

Once the training with Ida was completed, the three of them moved to a quiet clearing in the forest, which they regularly used to practice magic.

Danny stood awkwardly, fidgeting with the two wands that his friends had given him. Said friends hovered around him, waiting for him to be ready.

“I don’t know guys, aren’t you supposed to feel some sort of connection with a wand to be able to use it?”

Sam rolled her eyes at him, but Tucker answered Danny before she had a chance to. “Nah, that only applies if the wand has chosen you. These wands have chosen us, so they won’t react to you like that, but you can still use them. Probably.”

Danny glared at him, eyes flashing green for a moment. “Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence Tuck.”

Tucker just grinned at him. “Hey, always happy to help!”

Sam kicked him in the shin, then turned to Danny as well. “So, which one are you going to use?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I guess I’ll try Tucker’s, because that worked last time, but if it doesn’t work I guess I can try yours too.” He shrugged, but handed Sam back her wand.

“Well, what spell are you going to try, dude?”

“I dunno. Some basic charm, I guess, something that isn’t dangerous to you guys. Any suggestions?”

Sam and Tucker glanced at each other, and Tucker shrugged. Sam rolled her eyes before turning back to Danny. “Maybe the softening charm, Spongify? The pronunciation and movements are fairly easy, and it doesn’t require anything specific to try it on.”

“Yeah, I guess that sounds good. Can you show it to me?” Danny gripped the wand in his hand a little tighter, clearly preparing himself to mimic Sam’s spell.

Sam whirled her ebony wand around, before pointing it at a fairly large stone that laid in the clearing. She made a swirling move with her wand, somewhat like an S, and forcefully said “ _Spongify_!”. A ray of pink light launched from the tip of her wand, hitting the rock. Nodding approvingly, she wandered over to it and pressed down. The rock squished down as if it was made out of rubber, before bouncing back into its original shape.

“Alright, now you try it.”

Danny made a doubtful face at her, but straightened out and pointed his borrowed wand at a different rock. He exhaled, focusing, and then repeated Sam’s movement, calling out the spell as required. The light that shot out of his wand was a weird mix of ectoplasm-green and pink, however, and the rock shattered into tiny pieces when the spell hit it.

“Uh, whoops?”

Sam shook her head at him but didn’t comment, instead wandering over to what was left of the rock. She grabbed one of the pieces, squashing it in her fist. It gave easily, as if it were made out of rubber.

“Well, it worked, more or less.”

Tucker snorted. “Must’ve somehow mixed in ecto-energy, then. Maybe it’s a side-effect from being half-ghost?”

Danny frowned at them, but walked over to Sam to take a closer look as well, grabbing a piece of the rock. Like she said, it had turned rubbery and bouncy.

“So I guess we were all right, sort of. It’s both magic, like Tucker suggested, and an ecto-ray, like Sam thought.” He tossed the shard up, catching it again before it hit the ground, and frowned pensively. “Maybe I can learn to filter out the ecto-energy when I’m trying to do magic.”

“And I guess we’ll have to add in magic training for you, in addition to your regular ghost power training. Geez Danny, overpowered much?” Sam grinned at him as she said it, and Danny smiled back.

“Yeah, well, wait until I get around to using my powers to prank you guys back.” The smile on his face twisted into something wicked as he said it, and Tucker repressed a shiver.

“Okay, well, now that we’ve proven that I was right and that Danny somehow got magic despite being a No-Maj before the Accident, how are we going to get him a wand?”

Sam frowned. “I don’t know. I guess I can look into the nearest wandmaker, and how we could get there without anyone noticing.”

Danny nodded. “And if this is anything like my regular ghost powers, and I bet it will be, I’ll probably have to deal with a bunch of accidental magic as well. Hooray.” He couldn’t sound less enthusiastic as he said it.

“Well Danny, at least your parents will probably just blame it on a ghost.” Tucker winked at his friend, who groaned in response.

“Tucker, I _am_ a ghost.”

Sam rolled her eyes in fond exasperation. “Boys, boys, you’re both pretty. Can we please focus again?”

Tucker laid his hand on his chest and gasped dramatically. “Aw, Sam, you think I’m pretty? You should tell the other girls at school, maybe one of them will agree and ask me out.”

Sam punched him in the arm in response and didn’t dignify him with an answer. Danny chuckled, but immediately wiped the smile off of his face when she turned to glare at him.

“Right, uh. We should go through all the spells that Ida has taught you two, and somehow sort them on how easy they were to learn, and how useful they’ll be. That way, we can figure out the best order for me to learn them in.”

Tucker nodded. “Since Sam is going to look into getting you a wand, I guess I can take care of assembling the initial list. We’ll have to go through it together to figure out which spells are most useful, though.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a plan. And it’s getting late, so let’s start heading home. We can get in a last patrol along the way.”

Both boys nodded their approval, and they set off through the woods again.

* * *

It had been just over a week since Danny discovered his new ‘ghostly’ magic. Sam and Tucker had continued to teach him magic. But it quickly became clear that his magic, at least with the wands of his friends, remained lackluster and, for lack of a better word, explosive.

Their search for a wandmaker hadn’t been very successful either, because the closest were still too far away for the three of them to reach. Danny could probably make it if he flew, but he didn’t trust his ghost powers enough to try. Not yet, at least.

As the others had predicted, his newly gained magic had started manifesting as it did for any untrained wizard or witch – with accidental bouts of magic. He knew he had to get a wand to learn to control it better, because his magic was even shakier than his ghost powers.

Danny stretched and yawned, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with his hands. He had had a surprisingly good night’s sleep, with no ghosts disturbing his rest. He dressed himself quickly, grabbed his homework from his desk, and went to leave for breakfast.

He stopped, frowned, and turned back to look at the desk again.

On his desk laid a narrow, rectangular box with a folded note lying on top of it. Danny walked back over and took the note, folding it open to read it.

_Daniel,_

_I have heard of your magical problems. This wand should alleviate some of your troubles. It is yew, with a thestral tail hair as core, 11.5” and fairly flexible. May it serve you well._

The handwriting wasn’t one that Danny recognized, and there was no signature of any kind to show who had written the note. Danny turned his gaze back towards the box. He hesitated for a moment, but grabbed the lid and pulled it off.

Lying in the box was a rather elegant wand, its pale wood standing out starkly against the dark fabric inside the box.

Danny frowned to himself, but reached out towards the wand. The moment his fingers touched it, he shivered, and he pulled away immediately.

“Alright, that’s… strange,” he muttered to himself, still looking at the wand. Somehow, someone had brought him a wand in the middle of the night. No one in his family knew about magic, so they couldn’t have done it. Sam and Tucker wouldn’t have kept it a secret if they had found one, and they couldn’t have gotten in Danny’s room anyway. A ghost, then? But his ghost sense hadn’t gone off all night.

He put the lid back on the box, tapping his fingers on the outside of the box while he considered his options. Finally he took the box and the note that came with it, and put both in his bag. He would have to talk it over with Sam and Tucker when he got to school.

* * *

“Woah dude, hang on. You’re saying that somehow a wand ended up on your desk, and your ghost sense hasn’t gone off all night? You’re right, that _is_ pretty suspicious.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, if we can find a quiet spot we’ll check it during lunch. Do you know anything about it?”

“Well, the note said that it’s made out of yew, with a thestral tail hair as core. Not that I know what a thestral is, or that I have any way of knowing if the note is right.” Danny shrugged.

“I think a thestral is a type of magical horse, but I’m not sure...” Sam trailed off, before snapping back into focus. “Anyway, we should figure out if the wand is safe to use, and if it works for Danny. The details don’t matter.”

“Sounds like a plan. But let’s get to class before we’re late.”

“Yeah, last thing I need is another reason for Mr. Lancer to give me detention. Again.”

* * *

“Okay, so it looks like the wand is, in fact, safe. Tucker and I can both use it, although the results are…” she trailed off.

“It reacts as unpredictably to us as our wands react to Danny. So it should work like a charm for you! Give it a shot, Danny!” Tucker cut in, grinning at Danny, who rolled his eyes in response.

“Yeah yeah, calm down already.” He accepted the wand from Sam, rolling it around in his hand. It felt right to hold it, like it tapped into his ghost core, but in an almost pleasant way, instead of the unpleasant cold that came with his ghost sense.

He straightened himself out, holding the wand out like the weapon it was, and pointed at the target they had brought. He took a moment to focus, pulling back on his ghostly energy as much as possible.

“ _Spongify_!”

The light that came out of the wand was an almost flawless pink, and the target shuddered when it hit, but not even a scorch mark was left behind.

Sam nodded her approval, and walked over to test the results. Even from the other side of the clearing, it was clearly visible to both Danny and Tucker that the spell had worked as it should.

“Well Danny, looks like your mysterious wand donor knows what they’re doing.”

Danny snorted. “Yeah, guess so. I wonder who it was, though.”

“Well, if you ever find out, you should thank them,” Sam said, having made her way back over while the other two talked.

“Definitely. Anyway, Danny, you up for some more magic training?”

“Heck yeah, let’s do it!” Danny grinned at the two of them, and they grinned back. The next few hours were filled with magic, as the three of them worked to catch Danny up, and as Sam and Tucker got more practice in.

* * *

“Soooo, I figured out something new related to magic and my ghost powers.”

“Really?” Sam sat up, quirking an eyebrow at Danny. “What did you find out?”

“I think I can sense magic. It’s not like my ghost sense, it doesn’t trigger automatically when I’m near it. And I can only feel it, there’s no visual thing.”

Tucker also sat up to look at Danny. “How’d you figure that out, dude?”

The boy in question shrugged. “I was looking for one of my magic books yesterday and I couldn’t find it, and I was complaining to myself that I could sense ghosts but not magic, and then I realized that I could suddenly, I dunno how to describe it, ‘sense’ certain things in my room. And when I looked into it, I realized that everything that stood out was magical.” He smiled at them, rather sheepishly. “And I tried to trigger it again just now, and I realized that I could sense you two as well. So yeah, I think I can sense magic.”

Tucker had already whipped out his PDA the moment Danny started talking, and was now writing up a storm. “I’ve added it to our files. Do you think this is something you should practice during training as well?”

Danny frowned, then nodded. “Yeah. It’s kinda tough to trigger it on purpose, and maybe I can hone it to be more specific. It might be useful if I can sense wards and magical objects and stuff.”

“You’re right, that could be pretty useful. Who knows what kind of magical stuff we’ll run into now that more and more people find out about our Amity Park ghosts.”

“Alright, I’ll plan it into our training schedule, then.”

Sam snapped her fingers. “Actually, speaking of magical mysteries, Danny, did you ever figure out who gave you your wand?”

Danny blushed, grimacing at the same time. “Uh, yeah, actually. Clockwork said that he gave me the wand, but he was his usual vague self, so he refused to tell me why or how he got it.”

Tucker frowned at him, but shrugged. “I guess that makes sense. He would have known which wand was perfect for you.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, and he could have frozen time to deliver it, so you wouldn’t have sensed him.”

“Not sure why he didn’t sign the note with CW though, but I’m sure he had his reasons.” Danny looked at his wand, twisting it around between his fingers. “I’m glad he went out of his way to give it to me, though. We know now how much of a hassle it would have been to find a wand that works for me, and that’s not even taking into account the fact that we had no way of traveling around without telling Ida about my accident.”

“Man Danny, you must be pretty important if Clockwork went out of his way to break the rules for you.”

Danny mentally corrected Tucker, knowing that Clockwork interfered not once, but twice, but he remained silent. They didn’t have to know how close they came to Dan’s future. Instead he grinned at his friends.

“Yeah, guess so. We better get going, we don’t want to be late for magic training.”

Sam snorted. “Especially you, mister ‘no Ida I don’t have any magic I don’t know what you’re talking about’.”

Danny glared at her, playfully flashing his eyes, then rolled them. “I hear you. But I’m glad that Ida is fine with it. Training with you guys is fun, but having an actually experienced wizard there to help is pretty great.”

“Amen to that Danny, amen to that.”


End file.
